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MIMES 



joo copies of this book have 
been printed on Van Gelder 
hand- made paper and the 
type distributed. 




/M^CurxjJ /cAnrtr^ 



MIMES 



WITH A PROLOGVE AND 

*EPILOGVE BY MARCEL^ 

SCHWOB-DONE INTO 

ENGLISH BYA.LENALIE 




^ ^52^ 



PORTLAND, MAINE 
THOMAS B.MOSHER 
M D C C C C X 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS. 

Two Co*.£S RECEtVED 

SEP. 2 1902 

OOPVRIGHT PNTRV 

CLASS Ct'XXr. No. 

/%$?¥■ 

COPY A. 



•f 






COPYRIGHT 

THOMAS B. MOSHER 

1901 



THESE MIMES ARE 

DEDICATED 

TO 

ALPHONSE DAUDET 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOREWORD xi 

PROLOGUE 3 

MIMES 

I THE COOK . . . 7 

(le cuisinier) 

II THE FEIGNED MERCHANT . IO 

(lafausse marchande) 

III THE WOODEN SWALLOW . . 1 4 

(T hirondelle de bois) 

IV THE HOSTELRY . . 1 7 

(F hotellerie) 

V THE DYED FIGS . . .21 

(Jes figues peintes) 

VI THE GARLANDED JAR . . 24 

(la jarre couronn'ee) 

VII THE DISGUISED SLAVE . . 26 

(T exclave deguise) 
vii 



CONTENTS 







PAGE 


III 


THE NUPTIAL EVE 


2 9 




(la veillte nuptiale) 




IX 


THE ENAMOURED ONE . 

(Vamoureuse) 


32 


X 


THE MARINER 

(le fnariri) 


36 


XI 


THE SIX NOTES OF THE SYRINX 


39 



(Jes six notes de la flute) 

XII THE SAMOAN WINE . ' 42 

(le vin de Santos) 

XIII THE THREE COURSES . . 44 

(Jes trois courses) 

XIV THE PARASOL OF TANAGRA . 47 

(Vombrelle de Tanagrd) 

xv kinne 50 

(Kinni) 

sisme . ... . . 53 

(not in original editiori) 

XVI BURIAL GIFTS . . 56 

(Jes presents funtraires) 
viii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
XVII HERMES . . . -59 

{Hermes psychagogos) 

XVIII THE MIRROR, THE DART, THE 

POPPY .... 62 

(Je miroir, F aiguille, le pavoi) 

XIX acme 66 

(Acme) 

XX THE AWAITED SHADE . . 70 

(F ombre attendue) 

EPILOGUE 75 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . 87 



IX 



FOREWORD 



On the mouldering citadel 
of Troy lies the lizard like a 
thing of green bronze. The 
owl has built her nest in 
the palace of Priam. Over 
the empty plain wander shep- 
herd and goatherd with their 
docks. . . . 

OSCAR WILDE. 




FOREWORD 

*F Marcel Schwob's pur- 
pose was to " create or 
! re-create individual life, 
{ practising the art of differ- 
' entiating existences," it is 
also true that his re-creations are a 
part of his own heart's life ; and this, 
he says, in a letter to the writer, 
" is why the collection of Mimes is so 
slender. That life has worn away, 
and the renewal of the work would be 
like copying what I once lived through 
long ago." 

So these twenty-and-one prose- 
songs, marking a stage of his own 
literary development, are reiterations 
of a dead and vanished time, reincar- 
nations of the Greek soul, — a faithful 
recapturing of that old Greek life, 
seemingly so unconscious of a future 
here or elsewhere. 

xiii 



FOREWORD 

Perfectly moulded masks are they, 
as of a lifeless visage impressed in 
clay and revived in bronze, reproduc- 
ing a people, with their customs, dress 
and mythological beliefs : a series of 
medallions threaded on a golden- 
linked chain of bygone environment ; 
each medallion a poem wafted by a 
" frail Tartarean shade " from the 
underworld of wandering phantoms, 
where abide the spirits in meadows 
that bloom not, beneath skies without 
moon. 

Oscar Wilde, in his Intentions, that 
charming and only book of Essays 
which he saw fit to bring together, 
has perfectly expressed this enduring 
quality of work, that is 

"Carv'd with figures strange and sweet, 
All made out of the carver's brain" 

"Those who live in marble, or on 
painted panel, know of life but a 

xiv 



FOREWORD 

single exquisite instant, eternal indeed 
in its beauty, but limited to one note 
of passion or one mood of calm. 
Those whom the poet makes live have 
their myriad emotions of joy and 
terror, of courage and despair, of 
pleasure and of suffering. But those 
who walk in epos, drama, or romance, 
see through the labouring months the 
young moons wax and wane, and 
watch the night from evening unto 
morning star, and from sunrise unto 
unsetting can note the shifting day 
with all its gold and shadow. For 
them, as for us, the flowers bloom and 
wither, and the Earth, that green- 
tressed Goddess as Coleridge calls 
her, alters her raiment for their pleas- 
ure. Movement, that problem of the 
visible arts,^ can be truly realized by 
Literature alone." 

A dim-lit shade like that of temple 



xv 



FOREWORD 

interiors, ever enwraps the soft-gliding 
throng of this vague spirit realm from 
whence these Mimes are shapen. 
Daphnis, "the forester, known from 
here to the heavens, keeper of a fair 
flock," and gentle Chloe, "the fresh 
in youthful beauty," called up from 
their deep sleep, falteringly issue from 
the dream-portal of Erebus, pathetic 
wraiths of a past love, with ardent 
souls extinguished by forgetfulness. 
Nor substance of tears or laughter 
nor of aught material are they, — 
mere tender fancies, yet we love the 
filmy figures, moon-flowers of the 
imagination, that float mid the starless 
plains of this gray Kingdom of Seem- 
ing, from which the aroma of youth 
and passion has fled, as float the trans- 
parent drifts of formless white clouds 
on a twilight sky. 

Anon, summoning these shades of 

xvi 



FOREWORD 

the numbered centuries into the white- 
ness of our earth-sphere, mid the stir 
of the sunlit isles of Sicily, in the 
days when the pearly city of Mitylene 
gleamed radiant in the young-orbed 
world, the author renews the animate 
scenes and throbbing human passions 
of golden-hearted Greece, evolving 
clean-etched, realistic pictures that 
live with us in such vivid portrayal 
that we say of them : these are not 
stark and stiffened personages, but 
vital entities, — "a poor Greek like 
me." 

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to 
Marcel Schwob from Vailima, July 
7th, 1894: — "Thank you for having 
remembered me in my exile. I have 
read Mimes twice as a whole ; and 
now, as I write, I am reading it again 
as it were by accident, and a piece at 
a time, my eye catching a word and 

xvii 



FOREWORD 

travelling obediently on through the 
whole number. It is a graceful book, 
essentially graceful, with its haunting 
agreeable melancholy, its pleasing 
savour of antiquity. ... So here 
with these exquisite pieces, the xvnth, 
xvinth, and ivth of the present collec- 
tion. You will perhaps never excel 
them; I should think the ? Hermes,' 
never." 

And to William E. Henley, in one 
of his last letters, he advised the trans- 
lating of Mimes , saying it would be 
work worthy of such a poet. But, 
however poetic the manipulation of 
the translator, the rhythmic, undulat- 
ing prose of the original can not 
be fully indicated in English ; yet, 
so beautiful is the essence of the 
text, that the immortal presence of 
true inspiration cannot fail to shine 
forth. 

xviii 



FOREWORD 

Doubtless Herondas (or Herodas), 
whose Mimes were brought to light 
some years since in the British Muse- 
um, himself inspired by Sophron, "the 
master of the form," has served in 
return as an inspiration for this little 
group of Mimes. x 

"Two thousand years old, they 



* The Mimiamboi are assigned to the third and 
even the second century B. C. They consist of 
700 lines divided into seven distinct poems in 
choliambic or Scazon iambic metre, forming a 
kind of dramatic idyl dealing with scenes of 
ordinary domestic life, mostly humorous and all 
but one in dialogue form. Modern knowledge 
of the Mimes dates from 1891, when what remains 
of them was discovered among the papyri in the 
British Museum. An autotype facsimile was 
published by the Museum authorities in 1892, 
and various translations into French and Ger- 
man have since been made. See Studies of the 
Greek Poets by John Addington Symonds, 
(Third edition, 1893,) Vol. II, pp. 221-239, where 
a complete prose version of the text will be 
found. 

xix 



FOREWORD 

are as young as yesterday. Though 
they have survived the searching test 
of time they have been unseen of 
mortal eyes for countless centuries. 
... In the Mimes of Herondas is the 
revelation of a lost genre as well as a 
vivid and familiar image of ancient 
life. Even in the golden age of Greek 
literature the mime was practised and 
esteemed." 

From the specimens cited by Mr, 
Whibley it is evident that they were not 
intended for dramatic representation. 

"But," he continues, "if Herondas, 
in spite of Pliny's criticism, was not 
wont to polish and refine his style, he 
had a marvellous talent for presenta- 
tion. His characters breathe and live ; 
his simple situations are sketched in a 
dozen strokes, but with so vivid a touch 
that they are perfectly realised. The 
material is drawn from the common- 



xx 



FOREWORD 

place of life, but it is handled with so 
just a sense of reality that two thou- 
sand years have not availed to tarnish 
the truth of the picture. The book 
is as modern as though it had been 
written — not recovered — yesterday. 
The emotions which Herondas deline- 
ates are not Greek, but human. . . . 
What can touch the sympathies more 
nearly than these sketches of life? 
Not even the most real of American 
realists could sniff therein the pitiful 
odour of romance or classicism. Their 
familiarity is, in a sense, more thrill- 
ing than the most exquisite verse. 
Here, indeed, is the Greek revealed 
in dressing-gown and slippers. . . As 
the world was never young, so it will 
never grow old. The archaeologist 
devotes years of research to compiling 
a picture of Greek life, and the result 
is Charicles — a solid and unrelieved 

xxi 



FOREWORD 

mass of * local colour.' . . . Herondas, 
on the other hand, presents not a 
picture, but an impression; and one 
mime reveals more of life as it was 
lived two thousand years ago than 
the complete works of Becker, Ebers 
and the archaeologists." All of which 
might have well been said of Schwob's 
Mimes. 

And as "the chatter of women has 
changed no more in a thousand years 
than the song of birds," so, through 
the long sweep of the cycles, human 
nature has remained unchanging : the 
cook, such as he is in Mimes, tyrant 
of his domains, bullies his assistants 
and prates of his culinary skill, just 
the same to-day as in the distant yes- 
terday ; the sailor boasts his sea-lore 
and cherishes his superstitions of the 
sirens that will lure him to watery 
deeps, while "excellent lovers" wander 

xxii 



FOREWORD 

on the strand with tender caressing, 
and those who have loved and lost 
lament their dead* with weary unrest. 
Thus "The mimes are not statues 
of the fifth century, but rather exqui- 
site terra-cottas, quaintly and daintily 
fashioned, such as prudery commonly 
withdraws from public exhibition, and 
softened by that touch of nature which 
makes fiction real, and renders the 
old new again. And it gives us good 
hope of the future. If Herondas be 
found, why not Sophron, or Menander, 
or the priceless Sappho herself?" 1 

True to the key, withal, is Marcel 
Schwob, yet modulating his notes to 
the delicately attuned ears of the 
modern listener, an exemplifier of all 
that is ideal and realistic in the Greek 



1 See Studies in Fra,7ikness. By Charles 
Whibley. 8vo. London, 1898. (Pp. 145-160.) 

xxiii 



FOREWORD 

temperament and atmosphere, in this 
little masterpiece whose least word 
"carries acute suggestions of classic 
scenes and classic characters." 

In an article written for the July 
issue of the Mercure de France, in 
1893, when Mimes first appeared, 
Teodor de Wyzewa, one of its most 
able contributors, asserts that the in- 
ception of a surer and finer literature 
than that which had preceded these 
times is heralded by the advent of this 
book : one which might be designated, 
provisionally, as an imitative litera- 
ture. He holds that decrease of inner 
originality and increasing anxiety for 
exterior originality were the marked 
features constituting the history of 
contemporary art for the five years 
previous to this time, and that, as a 
result, artists and writers had lost 
discrimination, style, and sense of pro- 

xxiv 



FOREWORD 

portion and perspective, vainly search- 
ing for sensationalism and imagining 
that originality was their first duty ; 
whereas it should be but an adjunct, 
as the perfume of a flower is an 
accessory to its beauty. 

Therefore their works were lacking 
that tranquil unrestraint and indefin- 
able light and atmosphere which so 
permeated those of their predecessors, 
who possessed traditions of style, — 
and notably, that most important of 
all, which is the imitation of a prede- 
termined model chosen from among 
ancient writers such as appeal to us 
most understandingly. Thus did Ron- 
sard, who would have been dismayed 
had any one accused him of not 
imitating the old-time poets, and, as is 
well known, the sole literary ambition 
of Racine was to imitate Euripides. 

And quoting de Wyzewa's own 

XXV 



FOREWORD 

words : — " This gracious little book 
of Mimes by Marcel Schwob is for 
him but a pastime, — the charming 
diversion of a poet's soul ; I imagine 
he simply intended to continue the 
series of Mimes written by that ancient 
poet Herondas, and, in truth, he has 
done this efficaciously : each of his 
little prose poems affords us a simple, 
living image of Greek customs, an 
antique, faint and subtle image, so to 
speak, somewhat effaced as if the 
ages had considerately softened its 
colours. Still it is immediately seen 
that these poems, which might have 
been taken at first as translations of 
the lost works of Herondas, or of 
Theocritus, are additionally impreg- 
nated with a spirit entirely modern ; 
and under the dainty garb fashioned 
after this form, and in these ancient 
portraits, we detect the extraordinary 

xx vi 



FOREWORD 

qualities that impart an original savour 
to M. Schwob's writings. 

"In the Rot au Masque d' Or and 
other of his works published in the 
Mercure series there is a sort of 
tempered tragedy which I do not 
remember ever to have encountered 
elsewhere. Never has any one been 
so facile in the realm of the improbable 
and supernatural : never before has 
anyone rehearsed such strange visions 
in so calm a voice, relieved only by a 
subtle symbolism that but serves to 
heighten the effect. 

"In imitating these Mimes of Heron- 
das M. Schwob has thrown into still 
clearer relief the versatile features of 
his originality, already so clearly 
recognized. And in none of his other 
works does- he so thoroughly demon- 
strate himself in his double character 
of poet and savant." 

xxvii 



FOREWORD 

Throughout all his writings M. 
Marcel Schwob's language gives evi- 
dence of the highest literary culture, 
his vivid imagination lending great 
charm to his talent : minute observer, 
yet eminently Kfantaisiste^ he mingles 
narrative and reverie with the utmost 
delicacy and skill. And as his soul- 
life has evolved through the years' 
intellectual developing, so the radius 
of his thought has enlarged from com- 
plex materialism to a view-point of 
tender, optimistic mysticism. 

A. Lenalie. 



XXVlll 



MIMES 



habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli, 
qualecumque quod o patrona vi'rgo, 
plus uno maneat perenne saeclo. 




PROLOGUE 

HE poet Herodas, who 
lived in the isle of Cos, 
under the reign of good 
king Ptolemaeus, wafted 
unto me a frail Tartarean shade who 
had once loved on this earth. So 
my chamber was filled with myrrh ; 
and a faint breath chilled my bosom. 
My heart became like to the heart 
of the dead ; for I had forgotten my 
present existence. 

The fond spirit shook from her 
tunic's fold a Sicilian cheese, a 
light basket of figs, a tiny amphora 
of black wine and a golden cicada. 
Forthwith I was seized with desire 
to write these Mimes and my 
nostrils were assailed by odors of 
oil from new wool, unctuous fumes 
from the kitchens of Agrigentum 



PROLOGUE 

and acrid exhalations from the fish- 
stalls of Syracusae. Through the 
white streets of the city passed 
the cooks, their chitons high-girt, 
savory-throated flutists, wrinkled 
procuresses and dealers in slaves, 
their cheeks puffed out by reason 
of their gains. Across the blue- 
shadowed pasture-lands ceaselessly 
sped the piping herdsmen bearing 
glistening waxed reeds, and dairy- 
maids crowned with red flowers. 

But the fond spirit heeded not 
my verses. She turned her head 
away into the night and shook from 
her tunic's fold a golden mirror, 
some full-blown poppies, and a gerbe 
of asphodels, offering me one of the 
rushes that grow on the banks of 
Lethe. So was I filled with an 
instantaneous longing for the wis- 



PROLOGUE 

dom and knowledge of things ter- 
restrial. Now saw I, in the mirror, 
the wavering, transparent reflection 
of Pandean pipes and drinking- 
vessels, high, pointed hats and fresh 
countenances with mobile lips ; and 
the innermost meaning of objects 
became apparent to me. Then I 
lay me down upon the poppies and 
ate of the asphodels and my soul 
clasped hands with the shade that 
we might descend together toward 
Taenarus. 

Long time the slow-gliding, frag- 
ile wraith led me on midst the black 
verdure of the lower regions where 
our feet were stained with saffron- 
flowers. And there deep regret 
overcame -me for the isles of the 
purpled sea, the Sicilian strands, 
rayed with fine sea-grasses, and the 



PROLOGUE 

whiteness of the sunlight. The 
fond spirit understood my wish. 
She touched my eyes with her shad- 
owy hand, that I saw Daphnis and 
Chloe again ascend to the Lesbian 
fields. I was conscious of their 
grievous woe in tasting the bitter- 
ness of rebirth within the earthly 
night. And to Daphnis the kind 
goddess gave the form of a laurel, 
to Chloe the grace of the green 
osier-beds. Then knew I the calm of 
plants and joy of motionless stalks. 

Hence I wafted toward the poet 
Herodas other Mimes, perfumed 
with the perfumes of the women of 
Cos and those of the wan flowers 
of the lower regions and the pliant 
wild earth-grasses. 

Thus willed this frail Tartarean 
shade. 




MIME I 

™OLDING a silver eel 
^in one hand, thus, and 



| in the other my long- 
bladed kitchen knife, I 
am returning from the port to our 
house. The former was hanging by 
its gills at the stall of a fish-woman 
whose shining locks were perfumed 
with sea-oil. With ten drachms I 
bought out the fish market this 
morning: save this eel there were 
merely some small dabs, and a 
few thin pipe-fish and sardines not 
worth offering to the soldiers on 
the ramparts. Meanwhile I am 
going to open him ; he writhes like 
the thong of a leathern whip ; then 
I shall dip him in the brine and 
promise the fork to the children 
who light the fire. 



MIMES 

mime — Bring the charcoal ! blow on 
i the embers: they are of poplar- 
wood and the sparks will not beget 
rheum. Fool, thy head is empty as 
the swollen bladder of this conger- 
eel: shall I not grind it to the 
earth ? Give me the osiers. Go, get 
thee to the ravens ! This sage is 
worthless, Glaucon. I will fill thy 
mouth with it when thou art on the 
gibbet. And may'st thou swell 
to bursting like a sow's paunch 
stuffed with rich meal! Give me 
the hooks ! the rings ! And as for 
thee, though thou lick the mortars 
to the last morsel thou hast yet 
left in them the pounded garlic 
from yesterday! May the pestle 
choke thee and prevent thee from 
replying! 

The flesh of this eel will be 

8 



MIMES 

savory. It will be eaten by epicu- mime 
rean guests. Aristippus who comes i 
crowned with roses, Hylas whose 
sandals, even, are tinted with red 
powders and my master, Parneios, 
with his buckles of hammered gold. 
I know they will clap their hands 
when they taste it, and allow me to 
remain, leaning against the door, 
while I watch the supple limbs of 
the dancing-girls and the cithern- 
players. 

le cuisinier. 



9 




MIME II 

; WILL cause thee to be 
.scourged, yea scourged 
with rods. Thy skin 
will be covered with 
stains like a nurse's cloak. — Slaves, 
take her away ; first beat her about 
the belly; then turn her like a pipe- 
fish and beat her about the back. 
Listen; do you hear the clacking 
of her tongue ? — Wilt thou be 
quiet, miserable wretch ? 

B. And what have I done to be 
given over to the sycophants ? 

A. 'Tis a cat that hath stolen 
naught ; that now wishes to digest 
at her ease and softly drowse. — 
Slaves, bear away these fish in 
your baskets. — Why art thou sell- 
ing lampreys, since the law-givers 
have forbidden it ? 

10 



MIMES 

B. I did not know it was for- mime 
bidden. n 

A. And hath not the public 
crier announced it loudly in the 
market-place, commanding : " Si- 
lence"? 

B. I heard not the " silence". 
A. Hussy, thou mockest at the 

laws of the city. — This woman 
even aspires to tyranny. Strip her 
that I see if she be not a veritable 
Pisistratus in hiding. — Ah ! Ah ! 
but now thou wert a woman. So 
then, so then. Verily, here is a 
woman-vender of a new species ! Is 
it the fish that prefer thee in this 
fashion or thy customers ? — Leave 
this young fellow naked : the heli- 
asts shall judge if he be not pun- 
ished for selling prohibited fish at 
the stalls, disguised as a woman. 

ii 



MIMES 

mime B. O sycophant, have pity and 
ii lend ear. I love better than life a 
young girl who is guarded by the 
slave-merchant of Longs Murs. 
He will sell her for twelve minae 
and my father refuses me the 
pieces of silver. I have prowled 
about the house too frequently 
and now they have placed her in 
durance lest I should see her. 
Soon she will be brought to the 
market-place with her friends and 
master. I have thus disguised 
myself that I may speak with her ; 
and that I may gain her attention, 
unobserved, am I selling these 
lampreys. 

A. If thou givest me one mina 
I will cause thy friend to be seized 
with thee when she is buying thy 
fish and I will feign to denounce 

12 



MIMES 

both, thou as seller, she as buyer; mime 
then, confined in my house, you n 
may scoff till the next dawn at the 
miserly merchant. — Slaves, return 
her dress to this woman, for she is 
a woman (did you not see her ? ) 
and these lampreys are false lam- 
preys — by Hermes, they are ex- 
ceedingly fat, glistening pipe-fish 
(did you not tell me so?) — Return 
to thy fish-stall, insolent creature, 
and have a care not to sell anything 
for I still suspect thee. 

— Here comes the young girl ; 
by Aphrodite, she is supple; I 
shall have one mina, and perhaps, 
by intimidating this young man, 
may divide the love also. 

- la fausse marchande. 



13 




MIME III 

PEN to us! child, child 
open to us! Behold the 
offspring of the wooden 
swallow. Her head is 
painted red and her wings are blue. 
Not so are the living swallows, as 
we know ; and, by Philomela, there 
is one, even now, which wings its 
flight across the sky; but ours is 
carved from wood. Child! open 
to us, open to us, child ! 

Here are ten, twenty, thirty of 
us bringing you the painted swal- 
low to announce the return of 
spring. No flowers are here as 
yet, but accept these white and rose- 
tinted palms. 

We know you are cooking a 
stuffed paunch, with honied beets ; 
and yesterday your slave bought 

14 



MIMES 

dormice to preserve in sugar, mime 
Guard your feast unto yourself : we in 
ask but little. Some fried nuts! 
some fried nuts ! Child, give us 
some nuts, give us some nuts, 
child ! 

The swallow's head is as rosy as 
the new dawn and her wings are 
blue as the new month's sky. 
Rejoice ye ! The porches will 
shed coolness and the trees will 
paint their shadows on the meads. 
Our swallow predicts you boun- 
tiful harvest of wine and oil. 
Turn last year's oil in our jugs and 
the wine in our amphoras ; for, — 
listen, O child ! — the swallow says 
she wills to taste them ! Pour out 
your wine and oil for our wooden 
swallow ! 

In former days when you were 

15 



MIMES 

mime small you have perchance, like us, 
in borne the swallow from door to 
door. She motions that she re- 
members it. Do not, then, keep 
us waiting at your threshold till the 
night-torches are alight. Give us 
of your fruits and curds. If you 
are generous we will go to the 
next house where dwells the miser 
with red eyebrows. The swallow 
will ask him for his dish of rabbit, 
his yellow tart and his roasted 
thrushes and we will beseech him 
to throw us some silver-pieces. 
He will raise his eyebrows and 
shake his head. Then we will 
teach our swallow a song whereat 
you will laugh. For so, she will 
pipe abroad through the city the 
tale of the wife of a miser with red 
eyebrows. Vhirondelle de bois. 

16 



MIME IV 




OSTELRY, o'er-run 

with vermin, the poet, 

I bitten till deplete of 




^y| blood, salutes thee. Not 
to thank thee for having sheltered 
him one night on the borders of a 
dark highway ; the route is miry as 
that which leads to Hades — but 
thy cots are broken down, the lamps 
smoky ; thine oil is rancid, galettes 
mouldy, and, since last autumn there 
are white worms in thine emptied 
nut-shells. But the poet is grateful 
to the venders of swine who came 
from Megara to Athenae (thy parti- 
tions are thin, O hostelry), and ren- 
ders thanks also to thy vermin, 
which kept him awake by preying 
upon his whole body, swarming in 
hurrying masses upon the beds. 

17 



MIMES 

mime For, since thus he might not 
iv sleep, he sought to breathe the 
white moonlight through an open- 
ing in the wall; and from thence 
he saw a vender of women who 
came knocking at the door very 
late at night. The merchant called: 
Child, child! — but the slave was 
snoring, face downward, and with 
upstretched arms muffled his ears 
with the coverings. Then the poet 
wrapped himself in a yellow robe, 
of the same shade as nuptial veils : 
this crocus-tinted robe had been 
left in his possession one morning 
when a young love-maiden deserted 
him clad in a new lover's robe. So 
the poet, with the outward seeming 
of a servant, opened the door ; and 
the vender of women ushered in a 
numerous band. The breasts of 

18 



MIMES 

the young girl who entered last mime 
were firm as the quince fruit ; she iv 
was worth, at least, twenty minae. 

— O servant, said she, I am 
weary ; where is my bed ? 

— O my dear lady, said the poet, 
thy friends already occupy every 
bed in the inn ; only the servant's 
cot is left; if you wish to lie 
thereon you are welcome. 

The miserable wretch who cared 
for all these fair, young girls flared 
the light of the great charred lamp- 
wick in the face of the poet ; per- 
ceiving a maid-servant, neither 
too beautiful nor well arrayed, he 
uttered no word of dissent. 

Hostelry, the poet, bitten till 
deplete of _blood, thanks thee. The 
woman who rested with the maid- 
servant this night was softer than 

19 



MIMES 

mime eider-down and her fragrant throat 
iv was like to a perfected fruit. But 
all this had remained untold, O 
hostelry, but for the noisy prating 
of thy cot. The poet fears that the 
little pigs of Megara may have thus 
learned of his adventure. O ye 
who listen to these words, if the 
" coi, cot " of these little pigs from 
Agora to Athenae falsely relates 
that our poet indulges in low 
amours come to the hostelry and 
see his little friend whose love he 
knew, — she whose breasts are as 
firm as the quince fruit, — this poet 
bitten by the blessed vermin on a 
moonlit night. 

Fhbtellerie. 



20 



MIME V 




HIS earthen jar over- 
flowing with milk is in- 
tended as an offering to 
the little goddess of my 
fig-tree. I will pour libations of 
new milk each morning, and if it so 
pleaseth the goddess I will fill the 
jar with honey or unblended wine. 
Thus will I honor her from spring- 
tide until autumn ; and should a 
storm break this jar I will purchase 
another at the potteries, even 
though clay should be priceless this 
year. 

In return, I pray the little god- 
dess who watches over the fig-tree 
in my garden to change the color of 
its figs. They were white, sweet and 
savory; but Iole wearies of them. 



21 



MIMES 

mime She now longs for red figs, and 
v vows they will be better thus. 

It is never true to nature that a 
fig-tree bearing white fruit should 
put forth red figs in the autumn; 
nevertheless Iole wishes it thus. 
If I have faithfully consecrated 
myself to my garden gods ; if I 
have woven them garlands of vio- 
lets and poured forth libations of 
wine and milk from my water-jars ; 
if I have gathered poppies for them 
at the hour when the sun kisses the 
crest of my wall, mid swarms of 
gnats that float on the evening air ; 
if I am worthy of their friendly con- 
sideration for my religious observ- 
ance of all these rites, O goddess, 
cause thy fig-tree to blossom for 
the bearing of red figs. 

If thou should'st not hearken to 

.22 



MIMES 

my supplication I shall not cease to mime 
honor thee with cool jars; but I v 
shall be constrained to rise at dawn, 
in the fruit season, to dextrously 
pry open each new fig and stain its 
inner recesses with fine Tyrian dyes 
of purple. 

les figues peintes. 



23 




MIME VI 

e A potter, having turned 
the base of a jar whose 



bowl I moulded and 
curved from yellow clay, 
have filled it with fruit as an offer- 
ing to the god of gardens. But 
he ever contemplates the shimmer- 
ing foliage, fearing lest thieves 
break through the walls. At night 
the furtive dormice have burrowed 
among the apples and devoured 
them to the very seeds. Timidly, 
as the fourth hour approached, 
they emerged, waving their downy 
black and white tails. At dawn 
Aphrodite's doves perched on the 
violet rim of my earthern vessel, 
erecting their little, iridescent neck- 
feathers. At quivering noontide, a 
young girl, alone, drew near the 

24 



MIMES 

god, bringing hyacinth wreaths, mime 
Having perceived me where I vi 
tarried, crouching in the shadow of 
a beech, unregarding of me, she 
crowned the jar, devoid of its fruits. 
Though the god, thus despoiled 
of his flowers, become enangered, 
though the dormice devour my 
apples, though Aphrodite's birds 
curve their tender heads towards 
one another wonderingly ! — yet 
have I twined the fresh hyacinths 
in my hair, and till the next noon I 
will await her who garlands the 
jars. 

la jarre couronnee. 



25 




MIME VII 

MANNIA, come chas- 
tise this insolent one 
with a good, leather lash 
of Paphlagonia. I 
bought him of the Phoenician mer- 
chants for ten minae and he has not 
suffered with hunger under my 
roof. Let him tell it, if the cooks 
have given him rancid fish or 
olives. He has gorged himself with 
stuffed and roasted paunches, pipe- 
fish from lake Copais, and rich 
curds that still bear the impress 
of their wicker moulds. He has 
drunk of the unblended wines that 
I treasured in fragrant goat-skin 
bottles. He has emptied my flasks 
of Syrian balm and his tunic is 
violet-purple: the scullions have 
never plunged him in the vats. 

26 



MIMES 

His locks gleam like the aigrettes mime 
of a gold torch; the barber has vn 
never touched scissors to them. 
Each day my women depilate him 
and the lamp's red tongue licks his 
skin. His loins are whiter than 
my throat or than the flanks of 
ivory lions sculptured on knife- 
handles. 

By my soul, he has drunk as much 
wine in my caves, in one evening, 
as the initiates of the Thesmophoria 
during the three days of mysteries. 
I thought him snoring, prone on 
the ground near the kitchens, and 
I would have prayed the torturers 
to flay his lips with a mortar-pestle 
for punishment ; he should have 
expiated his drunkenness with the 
acrid flavor of freshly bruised gar- 
lic. But I found him trembling, 

27 



MIMES 

mime with uneasy glance, holding in his 
vii hand my mirror of polished silver ; 
and this thrice impious one, having 
stolen from my jewel-casket one of 
my golden cicadas, had fastened it in 
his curled locks. Then, balancing 
on one leg, his body vacillating with 
the fumes of wine, he was twining 
about his thighs the gauze covering 
in which I am accustomed to clothe 
myself beneath my tunic when, 
with my friends, I go to look on at 
the fetes of Adonis. 

Fesclave deguise. 



28 




MIME VIII 

HIS lamp with its new 
wick burneth with pure, 
^refined oil, before the 
^[evening star. The 
threshold is strewn with roses 
that the children have not re- 
moved. The dancers wave their 
last torches that stretch their 
fiery fingers out into the night- 
shades. The little piper has 
again breathed three shrill notes 
on his bone flute. The carriers 
are come, bringing coffers filled 
with translucid circlets for the 
ankles. Here is one who has 
coated his face with soot and 
intoned the jests of his deme. 
Two red-veiled women smile in 
the quiet air, as they anoint their 
hands with cinaber. 

29 



MIMES 

mime The evening star ariseth and the 
viii heavy-laden blossoms close. Near 
the great wine vat, covered with a 
sculptured slab, is seated a laughing 
child whose shining feet are shod 
with gold sandals. He waves a 
pine torch and its red strands flare 
across the darkness. His lips are 
half opened like a cleft fruit. He 
sneezes, turning toward the left, 
and the metal reverberates under 
his feet. Whereat I know he will 
depart at a bound. 

Io ! behold the yellow veil of the 
virgin bride draweth near! Her 
women sustain her 'neath each 
arm. Remove the torches! The 
nuptial bed awaits her, and I will 
guide her toward the soft glim- 
mering of its purple tissues. Io! 
Plunge the lampwick in the fra- 

30 



MIMES 

grant oil. It flickers and dies, mime 
Extinguish the torches ! O my vm 
bride, I raise thee to my breast; 
that thy feet may not crush the 
roses on the threshold. 

la veillee nuptiale. 



3i 




MIME IX 

PRAY whoever shall 
read these lines to make 
renewed search for my 
cruel slave. He fled from 
my chamber at the second hour 
after midnight. 

I had bought him in a Bythynian 
city and he was redolent with the 
balm of his native land. Long were 
his locks and sweet his lips. We 
took passage upon a vessel slender 
as a bean-shell. The bearded sailors 
forbade us to shave or cut the hair, 
fearing storms; and they threw 
overboard a spotted cat by the light 
of the new moon. The little wooden 
oars and canvas sails which impel 
these barks bore us by way of the 
Pontiac sea, where the waves are 
leaden-hued, to the banks of Thrace 

32 



MIMES 

where the foam-caps are purple mime 
touched with saffron when the ix 
sun rises. Then we crossed the 
Cvclades and reached the isle of 
Rhodus. Near there we disem- 
barked from the tapered hull at 
another isle the name of which I 
will never reveal. For there the 
grottoes are hung with red grasses 
and sown with green furze, the 
meadows soft as milk, and all the 
berries of the shrubs, be they dark 
red, clear as drops of crystal, or 
black as swallows' heads, contain 
a delicious juice that reanimates 
the soul. I will remain as silent 
about this isle as is an initiate of 
mysteries. It is very fair and no 
shadows ever hover over it. There 
loved I all one summer. In the 
autumn a flat-boat bore us to these 

33 






MIMES 

mime shores. For my affairs were being 
ix neglected; and I wished to raise 
money to clothe my slave in tunics 
of fine byssus. I have given him 
golden bracelets, staves wrought 
from electron and precious stones 
that gleam in the dark. 

O miserable one that I am ! He 
rose from beside me and I know 
not whence to seek him. O ye 
women who each year mourn 
Adonis, be not contemptuous of 
my supplications! If this wicked 
one should come within your reach, 
bind him with iron chains ; fetter 
his limbs ; throw him in the dun- 
geon paved with flags; have him 
driven to the gibbet and may the 
State- Torturer bend his head under 
the irons; sow generous handfuls 
of seeds around the gallows-hill, 

34 



MIMES 

that the kites and crows come the mime 
sooner to feed upon his flesh. But ix 
rather (since I trust ye not and am 
not sure that ye might not bestow 
pity upon a skin so polished with 
pumice-stone), I prefer you should 
not touch him, even with the tips of 
your delicate fingers. Give him 
over to your young heralds; that 
they return him to me instantly ; I 
shall know in what manner to pun- 
ish him myself: I will chastise him 
cruelly. By the offended gods, but 
I love him, I love him. 

ramoureuse. 



35 




MIME X 

F you doubt that I have 
wielded the heavy oars 
look at my hands and 
knees ; you will find them 
worn like ancient tools. I know 
each plant of that marine desert 
which is violet-hued at times, at 
others blue, and I also know the 
principle of each spiral shell. Some 
of the plants are endowed with 
human life ; these have transpar- 
ent eyes like jelly, a body like 
the sow's teats and a multitude 
of tiny tentacles which are also 
mouths. Among the perforated 
shells I have seen some which 
were pierced more than a thou- 
sand times ; and through each tiny 
opening came and went a fleshly 

36 



MIMES 

foot, by means of which the shell mime 
was conveyed about x 

After passing Hercules' pillars 
the ocean that surrounds the world 
becomes strange and infuriate. 

And in its course it creates 
darksome islands whereon dwell 
different types of men and won- 
derful animals. There is a great 
serpent, with golden beard, which 
governs its kingdom wisely; and 
some women of this country have 
an eye at the extremity of each 
finger. Others have beaks and 
crests like birds ; otherwise they 
resemble us. On one isle at which 
I landed, the inhabitants carried 
their heads where our stomachs 
are located ; and when they saluted 
us they bowed their abdomens. As 
to cyclops, pigmies and giants I 

37 



MIMES 

mime will say naught of them ; for their 
x number is too great. 

None of these things appeared to 
partake of the unnatural to me ; I 
felt no terror of them. But one 
evening we reached Scyllaeum. Our 
bark touched sand on the Sicilian 
side. As I was turning the rudder 
I perceived in the water's midst the 
head of a woman with closed eyes. 
Her hair was tinged with gold. 
She seemed to sleep. And then, 
indeed, I trembled for I feared to 
look into her eyes, well knowing 
that, having once gazed therein, I 
should turn the rudder of our boat 
toward the seething whirlpool. 

le marin. 



38 




MIME XI 

N the fertile pasture- 
lands of Sicilia, there is 
a wood of sweet almonds 
not far from the sea. 
Therein is an ancient bench of 
black stone, whereon of old the 
herdsmen have been wont to sit. 

On the branches of adjacent trees 
hang cicada cages woven of fine 
rushes, and baskets of green osiers 
that are used to gather in the fish. 
She who sleeps upright on the 
stone bench, her feet banded about 
with fillets, her head hidden under 
a pointed, red, straw hat, awaits a 
shepherd who has ne'er returned. 
He departed, his hands coated with 
pure wax, to cut reeds in the damp 
thickets; he desired to fashion from 



MIMES 

mime them a flute of seven pipes, as the 
xi god Pan had taught him to do. 
And when seven hours were passed, 
the first note quavered forth near 
the black stone bench where she 
who sleeps to-day was watching. 
Now this note was near, clear and 
silvery. Then seven more hours 
passed over the sun-blued prairie, 
and a second note resounded, 
joyous and golden. And every 
seventh hour she that is sleeping 
now heard one of the notes of the 
new syrinx ring out. The third 
note was distant and harsh like the 
clang of iron. The fourth was still 
more distant, and deeply resonant, 
like the voice of bronze. The fifth 
was broken and staccato, like the 
tone of a tin vessel. But the sixth 
was dull and muffled, as unvibrant 

40 



MIMES 

as the leaden weights of a net that mime 
clash together. xi 

Now she who sleeps to-day awaits 
the seventh note which soundeth 
never. The days enwrap the 
almond woods with their white 
mists, the twilights with their gray 
mists, and the nights with their 
mists of purple and blue. Per- 
haps the shepherd is awaiting the 
seventh note on the shore of a 
luminous sea, in the thickening 
shadow of nights and years ; and, 
seated on the black stone bench, 
she who awaits the herdsman has 
sunk to slumber. 

les six notes de la flute. 



4i 



MIME XII 




taining 
wines. 



HE tyrant Polycrates 
commanded that there 
should be brought him 
three sealed flagons con- 
three different choice 



The faithful slave selected 
one black stone flagon, one of yel- 
low gold and one of limpid glass; 
but the thoughtless cup-bearer 
poured the same wine of Samos 
into all three flagons. 

Polycrates examined the flagon 
of black stone and frowned. He 
broke the gypsum seal and inhaled 
the wine. This flagon, said he, 
is of common material and the 
odor of the wine within it pleases 
me but indifferently. 

He raised the flagon of yellow 
gold and admired it : " this wine," 



42 



MIMES 

said he, having unsealed it, " is cer- mime 
tainly inferior to its beautiful recep- xn 
tacle enriched with vermilion 
grapes and effulgent vines." 

But grasping the third flagon of 
limpid glass he held it up to the 
sunlight. The ruby wine glowed 
scintillant Polycrates removed 
the seal, poured the contents of the 
flagon in his beaker and quaffed it 
at a single draught. " This," said he, 
drawing a long breath, " is the best 
wine I have tasted." Then, placing 
his goblet on the table, he hurled 
the flagon that it shivered into 
fragments. 

le vin de Santos. 



43 




MIME XIII 

HE fig-trees have shed 
their figs and the olive- 
I trees their olives ; for a 
strange thing has come 
to pass in the isle of Scyros. A 
young girl was fleeing, pursued by 
a youth. She had lifted the skirt 
of her tunic till the edge of the 
gauze under-garment was seen. As 
she ran she let fall a small silver 
mirror. The young man raised it 
it from the ground and gazed 
therein; he admiringly contem- 
plated his eyes, fraught with wis- 
dom, loved their intelligence, 
ceased his pursuit and seated him- 
self on the sand. And the young 
girl fled anew, followed by a man in 
the meridian of his days. She had 

44 



MIMES 

upraised the bottom of her tunic mime 
and her limbs were like the meat of xm 
a fruit. In her flight an apple of 
gold rolled from her lap. Then he 
who followed her plucked the gold 
apple from the earth, concealed it 
under his tunic, gloated over it, 
ceased his pursuit and seated him- 
self on the sand. And the young 
girl still fled; but her steps were 
less swift. For she was followed 
by a tottering old man. She had 
lowered her tunic and her ankles 
were enfolded in cloth of many 
colors. But whilst she was running 
the strange thing came to pass : 
for, one by one, her breasts were 
detached and rolled to the ground, 
like ripened medlars. The old man 
swallowed both ; and the young 
girl, before flinging herself into the 

45 



MIMES 

mime river that crosses the isle of Scyros, 
xm uttered two shrieks of horror and 
regret. 

les trots courses. 



4 6 




MIME XIV 

XTENDED thus by 
my rounded rods, plaited 
from clay straws, or 
woven from earth-mould 
that the firing has reddened, I am 
held backwards and toward the 
sun by a young girl with beautiful 
breasts. With her other hand she 
raises her white, woolen tunic and 
above her Persian sandals may be 
seen such ankles as are moulded 
for the wearing of electron rings. 
Her hair is waved and a large pin 
is thrust through it at the neck. 
She evinces her dread of the sun 
by averting her head and in seem- 
ing is as Aphrodite come with 
bended neck. 

Such is my fair mistress, and 

47 



MIMES 

mime formerly we wandered in the mead- 
xiv ows sown with hyacinths, when 
she was in the rosy flesh and I of 
yellow straw: the white sunlight 
kissed me without, and beneath 
my dome the perfume of the maid- 
en's locks caressed me. And the 
deity who transforms objects hav- 
ing hearkened to my prayer, like a 
water-swallow that descends with 
outstretched wings to caress with 
its beak a flower born in the depths 
of a pool, I gently alighted on her 
head; I lost the reed which held 
me aloof from her in the air and 
became the hat which covered her 
with its fluttering roof. 

But a potter that also modelled 
figures of young girls, having spied 
us in a suburb of the city, implored 
us to wait while he rapidly turned 

4 8 



MIMES 

under his thumbs a tiny image of mime 
clay. A worker in small figures, he xiv 
reproduced us in his clay language 
and assuredly he understood how 
to delicately plait me, deftly fold 
the white, woolen tunic, and wave 
my lady's hair; but not compre- 
hending the unexpressed desire of 
things inanimate he cruelly sepa- 
rated me from the head I loved; so, 
once more become a parasol in my 
renewed existence, I now balance 
myself afar from the neck of my 
mistress. 

Pombrelle de Tanagra. 



49 




MIME XV 

^CONSECRATE this 
altar to the memory of 



Kinne. Here, near the 
black rocks where the 
foam splinters, we have roamed 
together. The channelled strand 
knows it, and the woods of service- 
trees, — the reeds of the sands and 
the yellow tops of the sea-poppies. 
Her hands were filled with fluted 
conch-shells and I poured kisses in 
her quivering, shell-like ears. She 
laughed at the crested birds that 
perch on the sea-weed with balanc- 
ing tails. I saw in her eyes the 
long line of white light that marks 
the horizon boundary of the brown 
earth and the blue sea. The water 
rose about her feet to the ankles 

50 



MIMES 

and the tiny sea denizens leaped mime 
upon her woolen tunic. xv 

We loved the shining evening 
star and the hazy crescent moon. 
The wind that crosses the ocean 
bore to us the fragrance of spice- 
lands. Our lips were whitened with 
the sea-salt and we watched the soft, 
translucent creatures on the waves, 
like living lamps. The breath of 
Aphrodite enveloped us. 

I know not why the Kind God- 
dess had lulled Kinne to that long 
sleep. She sank among the yellow 
sand-poppies at the rose-dawn of the 
morning star. Blood oozed from 
her mouth and the light of her eyes 
went out. Between her eyelids I 
saw the long, black line that marks 
the dividing of those that rejoice in 
the sunlight from those that weep 

5i 



MIMES 

mime near the fens. Now Kinne walks 
xv alone on the shores of the nether 
waters and the hollows of her ears 
are resonant with the murmurings 
of the flying shades. Over the 
sea-rim of hell wave sad black- 
headed poppies, and the star of 
Persephone's dim sky has neither 
evening nor morning, but is like 
to a withered asphodel. 

Kinne. 



52 




sism£ 

(Not included in original edition.) 

^ HE whom here you see 
in withered form was 
called Sisme, daughter 
of Thratta; in her youth 
she knew but the bees and the 
flocks ; then she tasted the salt of 
the sea; at length a merchant led 
her into the white houses of Syria. 
Now she is closely swathed, like a 
precious statuette, in her stone 
sheath. Count the rings which 
gleam on her fingers : just so many 
years had she. See the fillet that 
bands her forehead : thereon she 
timidly received her first love-kiss. 
Touch the star of pale rubies that 
sleeps where once was her bosom : 
there reposed a beloved head. 

53 



MIMES 

sisme Near Sisme they have placed her 
tarnished mirror, her silver osselets 
and long amber pins which once 
adorned her hair ; for, at her twen- 
tieth year (there are twenty rings), 
she was covered with gems. 

A rich magistrate gave her all 
that women covet: Sisme never 
forgets him, and her little, white 
bones have not rejected the jewels. 

Now the magistrate has built this 
ornate sepulchre for her, to protect 
the tender dead, and surrounded 
her with vases of unguents and 
golden^ lachrimatories. Sisme 
thanks him. 

But thou, if thou would'st know 
the secret of an embalmed heart, 
unclasp the tiny joints of this left 
hand : there thou wilt find a simple, 
little, glass ring. This ring was 

54 



MIMES 

transparent; from the passing of sisme 
the years it has become smoky and 
opaque; Sisme loves it. Be silent 
and comprehend. 

Sisme. 



55 




MIME XVI 

LAID in Lysander's 
tomb a green osier, a 
red lamp and a silver 
goblet. 

The green osier will serve to 
recall to him, for a little space (for 
one season will turn it to dust), our 
friendship, the soft verdure of the 
pastures, the arched backs of the 
grazing sheep and the cool, shaded 
nooks where we fell asleep. And 
he will remember our earthly suste- 
nance and the winters when fruits 
are garnered within the amphoras. 
The red lamp is wrought with 
naked women who clasp hands and 
dance with interweaving limbs. 
The perfume of the oil will evapo- 
rate, and the clay from which the 

56 



MIMES 

lamp is fashioned will crumble in mime 
the passing of the years. So Ly- xvi 
sander shall not forget the happy 
nights and white bodies which the 
lamp illumined; and it also served 
to shear, with its red tongue of 
flame, the soft down of arm and 
thigh, for the enhancing of touch 
and sight. 

The silver goblet is wreathed 
about with vines and golden grapes; 
an incensed god waves his ivied 
staff, and the nostrils of Silenus' 
ass seem still to quiver as in life. 
It was filled with sharp wine, pure 
and blended; wine of Chios per- 
fumed by the goat-skin, and wine 
of Aegma cooled in earthern jars 
hung to the wind. Lysander 
drank from it at the fetes where he 
recited poems; and the soul of the 

57 



MIMES 

mime wine it was that dowered him with 
xvi the spirit of poesy and oblivion of 
earthly matters. Thus the form 
of his spirit will still bide near 
him and, when the osier shall have 
decayed and the lamp be crumbled, 
the silver vessel will still endure in 
his sepulchre. Oft may he drain 
this goblet, filled with oblivion, in 
memory of his happiest moments 
amongst us. 

les presents funeraires. 



58 




MIME XVII 

HETHER the dead be 
enclosed in sculptured 
stone sarcophagi, or 
sealed in the hollow of 
metal or clay urns, or encased up- 
right, gilded and decorated in blue, 
with brain and viscera removed, 
swathed in linen bands, yet will I 
conduct them in a company and 
guide them on their way with my 
controlling wand. 

We advance down a swift path 
that eye of man hath not seen. 
Harlots press close against virgins, 
murderers against philosophers, 
mothers against those that refused 
to bear children, and priests against 
perjurers. For they repent them 
of their sins, were they those of 

59 



MIMES 

mime the imagination or of the deed. 

xvn And having never been free upon 
earth, since they were there tram- 
melled by customs and laws, or 
their own beliefs, they fear isolation 
and cling to each other for help. 
She that slept naked in the tiled 
chambers among the men is consol- 
ing a young girl who died before 
her nuptial eve, — yet dreaming 
imperiously of her love. One that 
was wont to murder on the high- 
ways, his face grimed with ashes 
and soot, places his hand on the 
brow of a thinker who wished to 
regenerate the world and preached 
death. The woman who loved her 
children and suffered through them 
buries her face in the bosom of an 
hetaira who, by intent, was without 
issue. The long-robed man that 

60 



MIMES 

was persuaded he believed in his mime 
God and constrained himself to xvn 
kneel often, now weeps on the 
shoulder of a cynic who broke 
every law of the flesh and spirit 
before the eyes of the world. So 
sustains the one the other along 
the route, journeying under the 
yoke of memory. 

Then they come to the bank of 
Lethe where I range them along 
the shore of the silent-flowing water. 
Some plunge therein their heads 
containing evil thoughts, others the 
hands that wrought evil. Rising 
therefrom, the water of Lethe has 
effaced all remembrance. 

Therewith they stand aloof from 
one another, and each smiles believ- 
ing he is free. 

Hermes psychagbgos. 

61 




MIME XVIII 

HUS spake the Mirror: 
I was wrought from sil- 
ver by a skilled work- 
man. At first I was 
concave like his hand and my 
reverse side was like a lustreless 
eye-ball. But I was then incurved 
in such manner as to reflect images. 
At length Athena breathed wis- 
dom within me. I am not una- 
ware of the young maiden's desires 
as she holds me, and I respond in 
advance that she is fair. Yet she 
rises at night and lights her bronze 
lamp. She turns on me the yel- 
lowed lamp-flame and her heart 
calls for another countenance than 
her own. I reflect her own white 
brow, her finely moulded cheeks, 

62 



MIMES 

her nascent, swelling breasts, and mime 
young eyes fraught with ques- xvm 
tioning. 

Her trembling lips she nearly 
poses on my surface ; but the burn- 
ing gold illumines naught save her 
countenance and all else within me 
is obscure. 

Thus spake the golden Dart : — 
As I was ingloriously plying 
through a weft of byssus, having 
been stolen from a Tyrian by a 
black slave, I was seized upon by 
a perfumed courtesan. She thrust 
me in her hair and I pricked the 
fingers of the imprudent. Aphro- 
dite taught me and sharpened my tip 
with voluptuousness. At length, 
I have come to be worn in the coif- 
fure of this young girl, and have 
caused her silken twists to vibrate 

63 



MIMES 

mime to my sway. Her blood riots under 
xviii my touch like a wild heifer but 
she divines not the cause of her 
suffering. During the four watches 
of the night I evoke sentiments in 
her mind to which her heart 
responds. The flickering lamp- 
flame casts dancing shadows which 
curve their winged arms. Thus, 
in thronging mass, appear hurry- 
ing visions and she swiftly ques- 
tions her mirror. It but reflects 
a countenance tortured with desire. 
Thus spake the Poppy-head: — 
I am born in underground fields 
among those plants whose hues are 
nameless. I know every shade of 
darkness; I have seen the irradi- 
ate flowers of night. Proserpina 
has borne me on her bosom and 
there I partook of sleep. When 

6 4 



MIMES 

Aphrodite's dart wounds the young mime 
girl to eager desire I show her the xvm 
shapes which wander in eternal 
night. There are beautiful young 
mortals graced with charms which 
have ceased to exist. Aphrodite 
endows with desire and Athena 
reveals to mankind the unavail of 
their dreams ; but Proserpina holds 
the secret keys of the two gates of 
horn and of ivory. By the first por- 
tal she sends forth into the night 
the phantoms that haunt mortals ; 
and Aphrodite makes captives of 
them, while Athena destroys them. 
But through the second portal the 
Kind Goddess receives all those 
that are awearied of Aphrodite and 
Athena. - 

le miroir, r aiguille, le pavot. 



65 



MIME XIX 




CME died while yet I 
was pressing my lips 
upon her hands, and the 
mourning women came 
about us. The cold crept over her 
lower limbs till they became pale 
and chilled. Then it mounted to 
her heart, that ceased to flutter, like 
a blood-stained bird one finds out- 
stretched with feet drawn up on an 
icy morn. And so ascended the 
chill to her lips which became as 
sombred purple. 

Then the mourning women 
anointed her body with balm of 
Syria and composed her hands and 
feet to lay her on the funeral pile. 
And the red flames leaped upon 
her like an ardent lover in the mid- 



66 



MIMES 

summer nights, to devour her with mime 
their scorching kisses. xix 

And the sepulchral men, whose 
office it is to do this, brought to my 
house two silver vases wherein are 
the ashes of Acme. 

Thrice Adonis died and thrice 
the women lamented on the house- 
tops. And in this third year on 
the night of the festival, I dreamed 
a dream. 

Meseemed that my dear Acme 
was standing by my bedside, her 
left hand clasping her bosom. She 
came forth from the realm of spirits ; 
for her body was strangely trans- 
parent, save about her heart whereon 
she was pressing her hand. 

Then grief aroused me and I 
lamented as did the women who 
were weeping for Adonis. 

6 7 



MIMES 

mime But the bitter poppies of sleep 

xix again encompassed me. And again 

it seemed to me that my beloved 

Acme was standing by my bed, her 

hand pressed to her heart. 

Once more I lamented and prayed 
the cruel guardian of dreams to 
withhold her vision. 

But the third time she reap- 
peared and signed with her head. 

I know not by what obscure path 
she led me to the meadows of the 
dead, which are surrounded by the 
watery girdle of the Styx where 
croak the black frogs. And there, 
seated on a knoll, she withdrew the 
left hand which covered her bosom. 

Now the shade of Acme was 
transparent as beryl, but I saw 
within her breast, a red heart- 
shaped stain. 

68 



MIMES 

And she supplicated me, with mime 
wordless speech, to take back her xix 
bleeding heart that thereby she 
might wander sorrowless midst the 
poppy-fields which wave there 
below like wheat in the fields of 
Sicilia. 

Then I clasped her in my arms 
but felt only the subtle ether. Yet 
it seemed to me that blood flowed 
into my heart and the shade of 
Acme was dissipated into thin air. 

And therefore have I written 
these lines because my heart is 
permeated with the heart of Acme. 

Acme. 



6 9 




MIME XX 

HE little guardian of 
Proserpina's temple has 
.laid honey-combs 
} Jl sprinkled with poppy- 
seeds, in the corbeils. She has long 
since been aware that the goddess 
never tastes them, for she has 
watched from behind the pilasters. 
The Kind Goddess remains impas- 
sive and is nourished under the 
earth. But even if she were nur- 
tured with our sustenance she 
would prefer bread rubbed with 
garlic and sharp wine ; for the bees 
of Hades make honey which is per- 
fumed with myrrh and those that 
walk in the violet meadows of the 
lower regions ceaselessly wave black 
poppies. So the bread of spirits is 
preserved in honey which savours 

70 



MIMES 

of embalming and the seeds which mime 
are scattered there beget a longing xx 
for sleep. Therefore hath Homer 
said that the dead, ordained by the 
sword of Odysseus, came in a band 
to drink the black blood of lambs 
from a square trench hollowed out 
of the earth. But for this once only 
the dead imbibed of blood, essaying 
to renew life, for they are wont to 
partake of funereal honey and som- 
bre poppies, and the liquid which 
flows in their veins is the water of 
Lethe. Spirits devour sleep and 
quaff oblivion. 

For this reason, and none other, 
mankind has chosen such gifts as 
offerings to Proserpina ; but she is 
not disquieted thereby, for she is 
imbued with oblivion and perme- 
ated with sleep. 

7i 



MIMES 

mime The little guardian of Proser- 
xx plna's temple awaiteth a lonely 
shade which will come perhaps 
to-morrow, perhaps never. If spir- 
its retain a loving heart like that of 
the young earth-maidens, this shade 
has not attained forgetfulness 
through the stagnant waters of 
oblivion's stream, nor can it rest 
by means of the sad poppies from 
the field of sleep. 

But, doubtless, she desires for- 
getfulness with all the desire of 
mortal hearts. So she will come 
some evening when the red moon is 
mounting the starry dome, and will 
remain near Proserpina's corbeils. 
She will break the honey-comb 
sprinkled of poppy-seeds with the 
little guardian of the temple and, 
in the hollow of her palm, will 

72 



MIMES 

bring some of the stagnant water mime 
of Lethe. The shade will partake xx 
of the earth-poppies and the young 
girl will slake her thirst with the 
water of the lower regions ; then, on 
the others brow, each will imprint 
a kiss and the shade will fare hap- 
pily among spirits while the maiden 
will rejoice among mortals. 

F ombre attendue. 



73 




EPILOGUE 

HE long, long night dur- 
ing which Daphnis and 
Chloe remained unslum- 
bering, like unto owls, 
brought them at last to where abode 
Proserpina, the luminous one. The 
indulgent god of lovers granted 
them early death such as fares to 
pious children. He feared the jeal- 
ousy of the nymphs, or the god 
Pan, or Zeus ; so he gave wing to 
their souls while dawn yet slept; 
and they came to the kingdom of 
Hades where, ever spotless, they 
traversed undefiled the infernal 
bog, listened to the frogs, and fled 
before the triple-throated bayings 
of the red-jawed Cerberus. Then, 
in the sombre meadows which are 
dimly illumined by a starry twilight, 

75 



EPILOGUE 

the two white spirits sat down and 
gathered the yellow crocuses and 
hyacinths; and Daphnis wove for 
Chloe a wreath of asphodels, but 
they ate not of the blue lotus that 
grows on the banks of Lethe nor 
drank of the water which causes 
loss of memory, for Chloe^ had no 
wish to forget. And queen Pro- 
serpina gave them sandals of ice 
with soles of fire to cross the molten 
torrent of lurid waves. 

Yet, despite the large yellow, 
blue, and wan white flowers of 
these subterranean meadows Chloe 
became awearied. Among the ten- 
ebrous grasses she saw only night- 
moths whose black wings were 
etched with sanguinary stripes. 
Daphnis found but creatures of 
the night to caress, whose skin 

76 



EPILOGUE 

was soft as the fur of bats. Chloe 
feared the brown owls that hooted 
in the sacred woods. Daphnis 
regretted the whiteness of sunlit 
creations. They both remembered 
not having wet their chins on the 
banks of Lethe ; they mourned for 
life and invoked the boundless 
beneficence of Proserpina. 

And as all dreams issue forth 
from Erebus, by the ivory portal, 
the sleep of spirits is dreamless. 
Since it is their wont to be wrapped 
in oblivion, no dreams, save those 
of the undefined plains that sur- 
round Tartarus, can evolve in their 
void, impressionless minds; but 
Daphnis and Chloe suffered im- 
measurably because the memories 
of their past life were never repro- 
duced in their sleeping visions. 

77 



EPILOGUE 

So the Kind Goddess took pity 
upon them and permitted the 
Guardian of Souls to console them. 

On a blue night he feigned to con- 
found them with his dreams ; and, 
amongst the multicolored beings, 
crowding and flying about, shout- 
ing, laughing or weeping, which 
pass beneath our eyelids, when they 
have escaped the dim portal of 
Erebus, Daphnis and Chloe, cling- 
ing closely to each other, returned 
to view the Lesbian isle. 

The gloom was azure-tinted, the 
trees bright, the underwood lumi- 
nous. The moon seemed a golden 
mirror. Chloe was reflected therein 
with a necklace of stars. Mitylene 
rose afar like a city of pearl. Sil- 
ver-white canals intersected the 
meadow. Some marble statues, 

7 8 



EPILOGUE 

overturned, drank of the dew. Their 
knots of hair, yellow-tinted, might 
be seen sparkling in the grass. The 
air palpitated with vague light. 

— Alas, said Chloe, where is the 
day ? Is the sun dead ? Where can 
we go, my Daphnis ? I no longer 
know the way. Ah ! our flocks 
are no more, Daphnis : they have 
strayed away since we departed. 

And Daphnis replied : 

— O Chloe, we return to wander 
aimlessly like the dreams that vis- 
ited our eyelids whilst we slept in 
the meadows or reposed in the 
stables. Our heads are empty as 
ripened poppies. Our hands are 
laden with the flowers of eternal 
night. Thy dear brow is banded 
with asphodels and thou wearest on 
thy bosom the crocus that blooms 

79 



EPILOGUE 

in the Isles of the Blest. Perhaps 
it were better not to remember. 
)^\ — But behold what I recall, my 
Daphnis, said Chloe. The path 
leading to the grotto of the 
nymphs borders this meadow. I 
recognize the flat stone whereon 
we sat. Seest thou not yon woods 
whence came the wolf that so 
affrighted us ? Here, thou didst 
weave for me, for the first time, a 
cicada cage. There, in that thicket, 
thou madest captive for me one 
of the shrilling cicadas and placed 
it in my hair where it sang without 
ceasing. It was more beautiful than 
the golden ones of the Athenians 
of yore ; for it was alive and sang. 
I would that once again I might 
have one. 

And Daphnis replied: 

80 



EPILOGUE 

— The cicada is silent at noon- 
hour when the wind pierces red- 
dened spaces in the heart of the 
stubble, and the green-pointed hem- 
locks spread their white umbels for 
coolness. Now they are asleep and 
I know not where to find one. 

— But look, Chloe, here is the 
cavern of the god Pan : and I see 
the pool where the sight of thy 
naked body so disquieted me ; and 
near there the wooded copse where 
thy first kiss filled me with a delir- 
ium of rapture, — there where I 
came to watch thee whilst I limed 
the bird snares in the winter, and, 
in the centre of the vast hall, saw 
thee arranging the fruits in the 
great anaphoras. 

— O Chloe, the house stands 
there no longer, and the wood 

81 



EPILOGUE 

of service-trees is desolate, for the 
hoopooes and the wrens come there 
no more and Proserpina has extin- 
guished our ardent souls. 

— Look, said Chloe. In a purple 
flower I have just imprisoned a 
sleeping bee. I have observed it: 
'tis brown and ugly and I like 
not the black circles on its body. 
Formerly I believed the bee a 
winged kiss. I have dipped my 
finger in a honeycomb and all the 
aroma of new honey has flown. I 
no longer care for it. 

— Chloe, kiss me, said Daphnis. 

— Yes, my Daphnis. 

And the two white spirits were 
filled with unrest, but dared not 
speak. For the kiss no longer 
thrilled them and the perfume of 
wild flowers was gone from it ; and 

82 



EPILOGUE 

as the desire for sheep, goats, birds 
and insects lessened in their hearts, 
so, too, the touch of their lips now 
failed to create more than a tremor 
of emotion. 

— O Chloe, here we ate rich 
curds on the green osiers. 

— And I scarcely care for them 
now, my Daphnis. 

— O Chloe, there we gathered 
the first violets of our last year. 

— And I no longer love even 
the violets, my Daphnis. 

— O Chloe, see this little grove 
where thou gavest me thy first kiss. 

But Chloe, turning away her 
head, answered never a word. 

Then, silently, in their hearts 
they cursed the night which seemed 
to have tinged everything with 
bitterness. And with unuttered 

83 



EPILOGUE 

words they prayed to the Guardian 
of Souls to again place them 
among the ephemeral visions and 
bear them back through the dim 
portal of Erebus into the asphodel 
meads where they possessed the 
balmy pain of remembrance. 

But the Kind Goddess would not 
hearken to their prayers. 

They remained, apart, bowed 
down among the fallen statues. 

When the blue night grew faintly 
gilded in the Orient, they heard 
the sound of oars along the shore. 
Raising their heads they thought 
to see the pirate seamen who rav- 
ished all the shores of Lesbos, they 
who call with resonant voice, at 
each dip of the oars : " roup-pa-pdu 

Yet, though the mists were thin, 
they saw no boat. But there was 

8 4 



EPILOGUE 

a vast echoing which shivered the 
foam on the strand : 

— The great god Pan is dead ! 
The great Pan is dead ! The great 
Pan is dead! 

Then the pearly city of Mitylene 
fell down and all the statues were 
overthrown, the tiny souls of the 
brooks escaped, and the lesser dei- 
ties took flight from the hearts of 
the trees, the pith of the plants, 
and the vitalized calices of the 
flowers ; and silence brooded over 
the white marble fragments. 

The shades of Daphnis and 
Chloe, turned very old in the new 
light of day, suddenly vanished, 
and the Kind Goddess, whose power 
over the subterranean realms was 
annulled, bore them with her, as 
she fled over the meadows to the 

85 



EPILOGUE 

unknown regions where the gods 
have withdrawn. With her breath 
she caused Lesbos to bloom anew 
and returned Daphnis and Chloe 
to earth once more; for the isle, 
midst the white canals that inter- 
sect it, is covered with their multi- 
plied souls, so many laurels and 
verdant osier-beds have sprung 
from its buried heart. 



86 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



There have been three editions of Mimes, as 
follows : 

i. Mimes, premiere edition, avec une couver- 
ture illustree de Jean Veber(epuise). 

2. Mimes, reproduction autographique du 
manuscrit (epuise). 

3. Mimes avec un prologue et un epilogue, 
Paris. Edition du " Mercure de France" 1894. 
Square Fcap 8vo. Pp. viii-84. Grey wrapper. 

It is the final edition from which this author- 
iezd translation has been made, — and from the 
author's presentation copy to William Morris. 
Herein is the only additional Mime ever penned 
by M. Schwob, which, though written last, is 
placed in the midst of the series in accordance 
with the author's wish. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 




\a yer-andre-marcel 

i SCHWOB, born in the small 
country town of Chaville 
>(Sein£*-et-Oise), Aug. 23rd, 
1867, is a Jew, descended from an old 
Jewish stock of priests. Both his grand- 
fathers were rabbis in the synagogue. On 
his father's side the family was early 
established in Alsatia. His great-great- 
grandfather, on his mother's side, (her name 
being Kaim,) was also a rabbi who lived as 
an hermit in the forests near Wissenbourg, 
and tradition endows him with prophetic 
powers. The ecclesiastical genealogy of 
the Kaim family, which was kept in the 
synagogue of the town where the family 
dwelt, is said to trace them back to the 
Scribe Ezra ; however that may be, a faith- 
ful servitor of Senechal de Joinville, by the 

89 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

name of Caym, is mentioned in the memoirs 
of Joinville, A. D. 1270, and this Caym, 
since he dwelt in Champagne, is undoubt- 
edly one of Marcel Schwob's forefathers, 
and once saved de Joinville } s life. 

M. Schwob's uncle, on his mother's side, 
altered the name of Kaim to Cahun and, 
under that name, is well known as the 
author of many clever books {Les Aventures 
du Capitaine Wagon, La Mer, L? introduction 
a IS his to ire de U Asia Centrale), and as a 
contributor to the Journal des Dkbats. 

His father, who was educated at the 
Lycee de Rouen, with Gustave Flaubert, 
came to Paris in the early forties and be- 
longed to the literary circle which included 
de Banville and Gautier ; he contributed to 
the Cor saire- Satan, with which Baudelaire 
was also connected ; Jules Verne was also 
one of their number. Being poor, he was 
obliged to renounce literature for more 

90 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

resourceful means of living and, having 
married her who afterwards became the 
mother of Marcel Schwob, in 1857, he was 
then made Master of the Mint at Stras- 
bourg, but, being unsuccessful there, went 
to Egypt, where he lived ten years a£ 
Director of the Cabinet of Chedif-Pasha, 
who was Secretary of foreign affairs to the 
Khedive. 

In 1867, at the end of the summer fol- 
lowing Marcel Schwob's birth, the family 
settled in a country house at Tours, and 
here his youthful days were passed in com- 
panionship with a brother and sister both 
older than himself; but in 1875, n * s father, 
wearying of an inactive life devoted to the 
scanty interests of the municipal council of 
Tours (to which he belonged), purchased 
the large provincial journal at Nantes called 
the Phare de la Loire and therein our author 
exhibited his first timid literary attempts. 

91 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

From 1848 till after the war of 1870 both 
Michelet and Victor Hugo, as well as other 
writers equally talented, contributed to this 
sheet, which proves it to have been an 
important publication. 

In 1 88 1, having attended the Lycee at 
Nantes till he had finished the third form, 
Marcel Schwob was sent to the Lycee 
Louis-le- Grand 'in Paris, with the hope that 
he would enter the Ecole Normale, but his 
expectations were frustrated, his second 
form there proving but an unfortunate year, 
though in the preceding one he took his 
first university degree, marked very good. 
After this came the season of wild oats and 
he went up for the second part, only to be 
rejected over and over again, till his father 
at last decided he should volunteer for the 
army before his time. In 1885, therefore, 
he was sent to a most strict artillery 
regiment, the 35th of Vannes (Britanny). 

92 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

During his stay here his recklessness con- 
tinued unabated but in the winter of 1886 
he returned as a boarder at Sainte-Barbe 
in Paris, while still attending the lectures 
at the Lycee Louis-le- Grand, in preparation 
for the Normal school. Thus he passed 
three years, respected by both masters and 
school-mates, being virtually looked upon 
as an officer among these latter owing to 
his military schooling ; permitted to follow 
his own wishes almost entirely, he plunged 
into an ocean of reading, with a consequent 
neglect of his studies which resulted in his 
being rejected for the Normal, July, 1888. 
Wherefore he immediately entered for a 
licentiate's degree of letters at the Sorbonne, 
one which is supposed to be taken by the 
Normalites after their first year. In three 
months' time (November, 1888), he was 
adjudged first among the list of fourteen 
successful licentiates, — with over a hundred 

93 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

candidates for the degree, — thus outstrip- 
ping the Normal scholars who were one 
year ahead of him in their studies. After 
this he studied Greek pathography at the 
Ecole des Hautes Etudes and pathology 
under M. Michel Breal. 

Being particularly interested in the argot 
of the lower classes he printed a paper on 
this subject and was then gradually drawn 
to the study of that thieves' jargon used by 
Francois Villon and his companions ; at 
Dijon he discovered various curious docu- 
ments relating to the Bande des Coquillarte 
to which the poet belonged. Since then he 
has made a study of Villon, working at the 
Record office under M. Longnon and con- 
tributing several discoveries towards this 
gentleman's Villon edition of 1892. 

This same year the Revue des Deux 
Mondes published an important article writ- 
ten by him about Villon, and from then 

94 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

until the present time he has continued his 
discoveries in this line, unearthing new 
facts which are duly communicated to the 
Academy of Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres ; 
the latest and most important discovery 
being that of the date of the reprieve of the 
poet, when Parliament commuted the hang- 
ing sentence to banishment for ten years. 1 

" These facts are briefly stated, with due acknowl- 
edgment, in Gaston Paris' recent publication on 
Francois Villon, and in the copy presented by the 
author to M. Schwob he has written the following 
clever adaptation from Marot's inscription of his 
Villon edition of 1533 : 

TO MONSIEUR MARCEL SCHWOB. 

Si en Villon on treuve encore a dire, 
S'il n'est pourtant ainsi qu'ay pretendu, 
A moy tout seul le blasme en soit, messire, 
Qui plus y ay travaille qu'entendu. 
Et s'il est mieulx en son ordre estendu 
Que paravant en ce mien petit livre, 
Le gre a vous en doit estre rendu, 
Qui l'avez fait par grant amour revivre. 
March 2181,1901. Gaston Paris. 

95 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

In 1889 he was one of the staff on the 
Echo de Paris and at the same time wrote 
literary leaders (never republished) for the 
Evfoiement. Then, after publishing his 
tales in the Journal he was on the editorial 
staff of the Mercure de France. 

From 1894 to 1900 he published a num- 
ber of stories and works, some of which 
were shaped and developed after the form 
of the romance : — Cceur Double, Le Livre 
de Monelle, (these two being widest known 
and best liked, perhaps,) Le Roi en Masque 
d'Or, Mimes, Le Croisade des Enfants* 
Spicilege, La Porte des Reves, and Vies 
Lmaginaires. He has translated Daniel 
Defoe's novel, Moll Flanders, into French, 
also Hamlet in collaboration with Eugene 
Moraud; this was staged and played at 
Sarah Bernhardt's theatre in 1898. 



1 This has been translated by Henry Copley 
Greene (Boston, 1898). 

96 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

In September of 1900 M. Schwob mar- 
ried Miss Margaret Moreno, of the Cotn'edie 
Francaise, whose talents as an actress are 
so thoroughly recognized in France and 
who, likewise, lives in literature as the 
cr eat rice of Verlaine's Les Uns et les Autres, 
Elnfidele of Georges de Porto-Riche, and 
le Voile by Georges Rodenbach. 

M. Schwob is at present preparing a large 
work to be entitled: Francois Villon and 
his Times wherein the whole surroundings 
and the associates he mentions as having 
consorted with, whether foul or fair, will be 
made to live again before the eyes of the 
public. 



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